In Search of the Original
"Chief... you're buying a car?"
At Jo Sudeok's question, I let out a small laugh.
This was a secret, but we were speaking Korean. No danger of anyone understanding.
"Mr. Tezuka drew those illustrations for us. I wanted to give him a gift, as thanks."
"A car?"
I nodded. Tezuka's love of machines was famous, after all.
"And here I thought you were the one buying."
"If something catches my eye, I'll pick one up too. Why not."
"What?"
"I can just put it in the garage."
A well-kept classic only climbs in value as the years pass. Buying ahead of time was the most efficient move of all. Had he read what I meant?
"There I go again, fretting over your wallet for nothing..."
"Heh heh heh."
We soon started toward the parked Golf. The engine roared to life. Jo Sudeok took the driver's seat, and Tezuka and I settled into the back.
"You went to all this trouble over a car... I was honestly a little surprised."
"That yellow 911 just wouldn't stop flickering in my head. I looked into it, and it's a classic—hard to get hold of. So I called. I hope that wasn't rude."
"Not in the least. You did exactly right."
Color was already coming back into Tezuka's face.
"The thing about classics is... they're the cars I used to see in magazines as a boy. Most of them never even came into Japan. So a child has no choice but to nurse some vague longing."
"You can actually buy one now, though."
"That's why I acquired one. A 1964—the very first air-cooled 911."
Ah. So the yellow 911 had been a '64.
"It's a car with real historical significance. I overreached a little. If I could own only one car in my entire life... I thought this ought to be the one."
This from a man about to make trillions off Dragon Planet. One car for a lifetime seemed a bit much.
"Anyway, I bought mine from a collector as well. A man with more money than he knew what to do with... I had to beg and plead before he'd sell."
More money than he knew what to do with? My interest stirred.
"He used to run a mid-sized company. I hear he's retired now, and devotes himself to investing."
The place we arrived at was a mansion. No—mansion was too small a word. Castle suited it better. It sat a little outside the city center, and the scale of it was staggering.
A member of the staff guided us to a garage larger than an auditorium. The collection was too vast to believe it belonged to one man. Cars stood in ranked rows, line after line.
What a sight.
For someone who claimed to have been here several times, Tezuka looked wildly excited—a little kid set loose in a toy shop, his heart going thump-thump, thump-thump. Only then did he seem to come back to himself.
"I brought you here to make an introduction, and I'm the one making a scene..."
He laughed, sheepish, only to have his gaze stolen at once by another car. Tezuka's great love was Porsche, of course. And among all of them, his eyes had stuck on one red sports car in particular. I liked cars myself, and even I didn't know the model.
"Ah—this is the 356. The predecessor of the 911. A '48, no less. Porsche's first mass-produced sports car, so if we're talking about the real article, this is a true classic."
Exactly the face fathers wear when a son comes home with a report card full of firsts.
Okay. Hearts were popping in Tezuka's eyes. Into the gift pile it went, for now.
"And if we're speaking of the real article, this one can't be left out either. The first car Mini ever released. Probably a '59."
Another volley of hearts. Come to think of it, Tezuka seemed to like small, charming little cars.
"If you had to choose one of the two, which would it be?"
"By my standard, the Porsche 356, without a doubt. Look at that line. Isn't it beautiful?"
I asked a staff member the price. As a rule, most of the chairman's collection was not for sale... but for models he owned three or more of, they would specially consider letting one go. The explanation continued.
"The market is around a hundred million yen, but at a hundred and fifty million he might be willing to part with it..."
"Yeek!"
That was when Jo Sudeok, behind me, yelped. A used car at a billion and a half won—of course the shock was natural. Set against the size of my assets, though, it felt like buying a single expensive suit. And if I thought of the sales Tezuka had brought in...
This much is nothing.
I turned to the staff at once.
"Would you ask whether he's willing to sell? Please tell him it's meant as a gift for Author Tezuka."
I'd kept my voice as low as I could.
"Ch-Chief!"
He'd heard me anyway.
"No, no. I can't accept something like this."
As if he were going to accept anything else! And so we had to keep wrestling for quite a while.
"Sales went up thanks to you, so..." Surely this won't actually work?
"Consider that already repaid, with the scholarships for the University of Tokyo students..." Yeah. No good.
"My grandfather was very firm that I had to repay you properly. If you refuse this, I won't be able to face him..." MSG, going in.
"Then what if I telephoned your grandfather myself?" He's really going to take it that way?
Only after an exchange that bordered on threats did a compromise appear.
"If it's the '59 Mini, I'll accept it."
The man was impressively stubborn. And if I refused even this compromise? He looked ready to flop down in the garage and stay there. What could I do. I turned back to the staff.
"Mr. Tezuka says he'll take the Mini. In that case, I'll buy the Porsche 356 myself..."
"What?"
If it was that good a car, I might as well own one.
The shopping didn't stop there.
Hm. A model that looked familiar. Where had I seen it—
That's the Mustang from John Wick, isn't it?
Probably a '69. That era's thin wooden steering wheel, the feeling of driving a truck, almost. And the body, wide open the way a muscle car ought to be. I liked it.
A real man's car.
I didn't even ask the price. Straight into the cart (?) went the Mustang. Three cars. That ought to be enough.
I was thinking it might be time to head back when Tezuka stopped in front of another car.
"This is the true root of the sports car."
So today's shopping theme was In Search of the Original. Tezuka stressed the heritage again.
"The Alfa Romeo 8C. A legend that swept racing series after racing series. Released in '31, no less."
How to put it. The thing was shaped like a pistol. The driver's seat sat about where a sight would go, and a long barrel stretched out ahead of it. There wasn't even a roof—a real racing car, in the literal sense.
"The famous Enzo Ferrari was a racer under Alfa Romeo. The Maserati team, too, lay within Alfa Romeo's sphere of influence. This is a car that actually raced in those days."
I'd only heard the explanation, and the urge to buy came pouring out. In the end I couldn't leave the garage until the cart held a '59 Mini, a '48 Porsche 356, a '69 Mustang, and a '31 (!) Alfa Romeo 8C.
Perhaps because I'd been too fiery about it, a staff member came over.
"The chairman says he'd like to meet you. If you're willing, perhaps a meal..."
This was certainly not a fourteen-year-old's way of spending money. And hearing I was an acquaintance of Author Tezuka would only have sharpened his curiosity. I looked to Tezuka, as if asking his opinion. The answer came at once.
"He's respected across the generations. Knowing him won't cost you anything."
If Tezuka would go that far...
"I was getting hungry anyway. Perfect timing."
The mansion held quite a few people. Most of them, I assumed, helped with the household. But no matter how large the house... did it really need this many?
Had he read my face? Tezuka added a short explanation.
"I told you the chairman had stepped back from day-to-day management, didn't I?"
"Yes. That since then he's only been investing..."
"You remember precisely."
Tezuka smiled faintly and went on.
"Word travels so fast that young people hoping for investment gather from all over, I hear. A few publishers I know have called on him as well. The results weren't good, mind you."
Sure enough, most of them were men in their thirties, dressed in suits. So they brought business ideas, and the chairman decided whether to invest. And with the money earned that way, he lived in a great mansion... and kept a garage the size of an auditorium...
Ha!
A dream retirement, plain and simple.
For someone to whom retirement didn't feel like other people's business, it was a genuinely interesting sight.
I could live exactly like this. Forget management. Spend money, and when there's a spare moment, invest a little.
Wait. Even investing sounded like a bother. Wasn't there someone who could grow the money for me?
But that romantic thought lasted only a moment.
"Hooo."
"Haaaaah."
Sighs rose from every direction—sighs heavy enough to sink the ground. Footsteps dragging, strengthless. And in the end, someone who simply sat down. They all wore the emptied faces of people whose pitches had failed.
Well. How many ideas could move a chairman's heart? If a hundred came calling, the ones who received an investment wouldn't even number one or two.
All sorts of thoughts were drifting over my head when—
"Zenzen..."
Clumsy, but unmistakably Korean. Straight ahead. The voice drew nearer.
"Zenzen... zenzen..."
A man in an old jacket with the middle button gone. He walked with the spent steps of a soldier returning from a forty-kilometer march.
"Muchakucha ni suru na."
Huh. Japanese this time. In our language, that would land somewhere around damn it.
I'm sure he was speaking Korean a moment ago. Had I misheard? I was about to let it pass.
"Zenzeeen..."
The man muttered to himself again. That must have been why my eyes fixed on his face.
"...?"
Something familiar about him. Where had I seen this person? If I let it go, it would nag at me all day, so I bowed toward him.
"Hello?"
I'd spoken in Korean. But he floated a question mark over his head, as if he didn't understand a word of it. Had I misheard earlier after all? No. He was strangely familiar. And yet no name came to mind.
"I must have mistaken you for someone else."
I only bowed once more.